Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself (Anti-Quackery Edition)

OK, maybe I could have said it a little better if I really tried. Maybe I could have upped the snark level quite a bit on the particular comment I'm about to quote. But the general information is exactly what I thought after reading this post. My homepage tabs includes customizable homepages from Google, Yahoo (the offending site in this case), and MSN, there's a lot of overlap in the stories they forefront. There's also a lot of nonsense they put out there as 'news you can use'. New Age-y quack doctors are a dime a dozen. Chinese new age-y quack doctors infest the internet like [insert pest, say rats for instance] infesting [insert place where you loathe seeing pests but nevertheless unsurprised by their presence, say a Taco Bell in NYC].

I'm guessing Dr. Mao's guide to longevity is about as useful as Mao Zedong's Little Red Book.

Oh yeah, the quoted comment I referenced above? (see below)

Perusing Dr. Mao's archives, his brand of quackery isn't always crazed. His tips on natural weight loss seem fairly sound, at least undamaging, but for the most part Chinese 'alternative' medicine and herbal practices are an ancient, ineffective to outright harmful mispractice of healing arts. There's some wisdom buried in the silliness, but there's more silliness than wisdom, when it comes to maintaining good health, herbalists advice is generally OK (if you are healthy by nature and genetics, your body can withstand all sorts of self imposed stupidity), but when it comes to actually curing a real illness, these quacks will screw you up big time while lightening your wallet.

Don't eat canned goods, don't use microwave, don't use non-stick pans, don't use normal cleaners. This is RIDICULOUS advice from a "New Age" quack that is not only completely impractical, but completely devoid of any scientific basis. What garbage.

Posted by johnsig297 on Tue, May 08, 2007, 12:19 pm PDT

Unfortunately, I won't sway anyone susceptible to this nonsense, folks need their quacks, regardless of their cultural origins. But for whatever reason, Chinese quackery gets far more respect than it deserves, at least out here in La-La Land.